Rezoning challenge highlights confusion

Concerns about traffic congestion in north Spokane led the city to challenge a Spokane County decision on a proposed apartment-complex development. But the legal wrangling that followed has some in the city wondering whether the county’s method of approving land-use changes is clear enough.

“It leaves a big cloud about how the process is supposed to be carried out,” said Mike Britton, who reviews the traffic impacts of development for the city of Spokane. “It’s confusing to everybody. This is one of those things that’s going to take some lawyers to figure out.”

The development in question has been proposed by Lanzce Douglass, who submitted an application to Spokane County asking that 77 acres on the northeast corner of Nevada Street and Magnesium Road be rezoned from heavy industrial to light industrial. He’d like to build 1,560 apartment units, including three separate neighborhoods each with parks, playgrounds and swimming pools, according to county documents.

Neither Douglass nor his representative, Clifford Cameron, returned calls seeking comment.

The development would be called Douglass Park and would be along the Nevada corridor, home to many other apartment complexes. The land is part of 143 acres that Douglass bought from Kaiser Aluminum about two years ago for $6.8 million. It is in the county but abuts city borders.

The land previously was designated by Kaiser as a buffer to prevent development from encroaching on the metal-making plant, which lies to the north. Douglass has asked the county to change the comprehensive plan and rezone the land for light industrial use, which permits both residential and commercial use.

On Oct. 19, the county’s Building and Planning Department issued a “Determination of Non-Significance,” essentially saying the development would have no significant environmental impacts. The county issued that determination, said Steve Davenport, a senior county planner, because at this stage, the development is only a request for the comprehensive plan and zoning change.

“Specific impacts would later be addressed at the time they came in for a building permit,” Davenport said.

However, the application also included detailed information about the developers’ plans for the apartment complex. So the city, which was already concerned with growing traffic congestion along Nevada and Division streets, appealed the county’s decision to the county hearing examiner, saying a development of that size could place more than 10,000 additional vehicle trips a day along nearby streets. Britton said that could equate to the need for an additional lane of traffic.

Exacerbating the potential traffic issues are other pending development proposals that would add thousands of vehicle trips daily to north-south corridors. The proposals include a 153,000-square-foot Sam’s Club on 21.5 acres just to the south, at the intersection of Nevada and Lincoln Road.

Hearing examiner Mike Dempsey agreed with the city regarding the Douglass Park proposal and said the developer would need to do a detailed traffic analysis to determine what improvements might need to be made.

The developer, however, appealed that decision to the Board of County Commissioners, saying the hearing examiner had no jurisdiction to overturn the county’s decision because the application was simply a request to change the zoning. Under the proper process, the proposal would go next to the Planning Commission and then to the commissioners themselves, the developers’ attorney, Michael Murphy of Seattle, said in the appeal.

On Feb. 7, the county withdrew the Determination of Non-Significance.

Davenport, the county planner, said the county will “be required to make a new determination. What will happen is the applicant will have to perform a traffic study.”

But that leaves pending and unresolved the matter of the developers’ appeal to the county commissioners, including the statement that the hearing examiner had no jurisdiction to hear the case in the first place, a claim Dempsey said “has never come up before.” Dempsey also is in the midst of reconsidering his decision, another request made by the developer.

“The response to the appeal will determine what’s going to happen next,” said Val Melvin, the city’s traffic planning engineer. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Commission Chairman Todd Mielke said the appeal has not crossed the commissioners’ desk yet.